Combat Ban Lifted; New Mexico Considers Rape Bill

Cheers

Senior defense officials say Pentagon ChiefLeon Panetta is removing the military's ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war, The Huffington Post reported Jan. 23. The move overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. Panetta's decision gives the military services until January 2016 to seek special exceptions if they believe any positions must remain closed to women.

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The British government published a bill to legalize same-sex marriage Jan. 25 and said lawmakers will get their first vote on it in Parliament next month, USA Today reported Jan. 25.

The Moroccan justice ministry announced Jan. 21 that it backed a proposal to amend Article 475, which allows rapists of underage girls to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims, BBC reported Jan. 23. The move came 10 months after 16-year-old Amina Filalikilled herself after being forced to marry her rapist. Read WeNews' coverage of reaction to Filali's death last year.

A three-member panel set up by the Indian Home Ministry on Dec. 23, calling on the government to take several steps to improve Indian women's safety after the deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old student, submitted its final report to the government Jan. 23, The Wall Street Journal reported.

An unlicensed therapist, Nechemya Weberman, who was a prominent member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, N.Y, was sentenced on Jan. 22 to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a female teen, reported The New York Times.

China freed 1,281 abducted foreign women last year as criminal gangs shifted their human-trafficking networks to Asia after a crackdown in North America, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper, Bloomberg News reported Jan. 22.

On Jan. 21 Britain called on the international community to take real action in tackling violence against women, ahead of a the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which will focus on global efforts to end all forms of abuse, according to a press release from the Department for International Development.

Jeers

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Jan. 23 that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial, the Huffington Post reported Jan. 24.

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Chicago women, local groups and national organizations sent a letter to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, FOX executives and UFC sponsors demanding UFC light heavyweight Quinton "Rampage" Jackson be dropped from UFC on FOX for repeatedly denigrating women, including female reporters, and posting a video last year in which he makes light of sexual assault by pretending to rape a woman in a parking garage. To view the letter, click here.

Even though young women now surpass young men in the attainment of education, young men still have comparatively superior levels of economic well-being, according to a Jan. 23report from Legal Momentum.

Jan. 22, 2013, marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many state restrictions of abortion with Roe v. Wade, women who want to terminate a pregnancy face a growing number of roadblocks in many parts of the country, NBC News reported Jan. 22.

Women and girls were hit the hardest by the global recession, according to child rights and development organizations, BBC News reported Jan. 20.

A study shows there's still a gender gap between women and men in the realm of American independent film, the Los Angeles Times reported Jan. 21.

Noted:

President
Barack Obama is tapping
Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, The New York Times reported Jan. 24.

Men are more likely than women to commit scientific fraud, a new analysis of misconduct convictions reveals, LiveScience reported Jan. 22.

Women of childbearing age should undergo screening for domestic violence and other forms of abuse while visiting their doctor or clinic, according to a recommendation published online Jan. 21 by an influential panel of medical experts that advises the federal government, The Los Angeles Times reported Jan. 21.

In Egypt, members of the Salafi Dawah and the Nour Party have criticized the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party over the recently-passed parliamentary elections law requiring female candidates in certain spots on electoral lists, Egypt Independent reported Jan. 19.